Research For Fangs
by Andrew Joshua Talon
Summary: ON HOLD: Suu's latest experiment has turned Keitaro into a vampire...


****Research For Fangs****  
  
Andrew Joshua Talon  
  
DISCLAIMER: Myu, myu myu, myuh!  
  
******  
  
Keitaro Urashima found himself swirling around within his haphazard mind, drifting from memory to memory like a raft in a torrential sea. He couldn't put together any coherent thoughts, only a jumble of conciousness that made less sense than a Far Side comic.   
  
The three-year ronin finally settled into a calm awakening, the raging chaos of his mind coming to a slow stop. His eyes opened cautiously.   
  
Urashima was most definitely NOT in his room, where he had fallen asleep. Instead, he saw three small points of light above him, like the mocking eyes of a ravenous monster. A masked figure peirced his vision, cutting out the illumination of the bright trio.  
  
"What? What's..." The masked figure ripped off said mask, revealing a happily grinning Suu Kaolla.   
  
"All done!" She cried happily, tilting the examining table Keitaro was strapped to upright. Keitaro winced; the lights were still blindingly harsh to his retinas.  
  
"Oopsie! Forgot new eyesight!" Kaolla dimmed the lights carefully, leaving Keitaro to sigh in releif. He then blinked.  
  
"Um... Suu-chan? Why am I in your room?" Suu grinned mischeviously.  
  
"Suu needed gueani pig! Keitaro only applicant!" Keitaro distinctively remembered that he had, on many occassions, REFUSED to be used in Suu's experiments. He gave her a harsh glare.  
  
"Suu-chan, you know we talked about-huh?" For the first time, Keitaro noticed that he wasn't wearing glasses. However, despite this, he saw perfectly clearly.  
  
Actually, he saw a LOT more clearly.  
  
He found he was able to count each and every one of Suu's eyelashes without squinting. He also found he could see the detail in the wood paneling below him to the extent that not even a microscope would have given him such clarity. And this was not all...  
  
Keitaro could hear Suu's heartbeat, the air flowing into her lungs, the blood flowing through her veins. He felt the subtle vibrations the grass made as it swayed in her jungle of an apartment. And his olfactory senses... He detected the shampoo Suu had used that morning, the fragrance of unopened flower blossoms, the odor of his own sweat. The ronin stuck out his tongue tenatively; as he had expected, he could taste the air in front of him, taste Suu.  
  
Taste Suu... At the moment, Suu seemed to be extremely appetizing to him. An expression of animalistic hunger came into being across his face, like a wolf sizing up a kill. Suu giggled at his menacing demeanor.  
  
"Kei-kun got fangs too! Suu is a genius! I have done it!" Suu continued chanting "I have done it! I have done it!" while dancing erratically about the room. Keitaro's common sense shook him out of his blood lust as he ran his mind over what Suu had said.   
  
Fangs? Keitaro ran his tongue over his teeth; Indeed, he possessed razor-sharp canines, which slit his tongue when he pressed on their tips. Keitaro winced at the pain, but then tasted of his own plasma.   
  
It tasted good. No, it tasted exquisite, like a fine, warm wine. Keitaro licked his chops as he considered the energetic blonde before him. A burst of strength and speed, and Keitaro had captured the astonished girl.  
  
"Mmm," he murmured as he sniffed at the struggling girl's neck,"smells good." He opened his mouth, bearing his fangs-  
  
"STOP!" Keitaro blinked. He was about to clasp his jaws over Suu's neck. The girl bore a frightened expression-Toward HIM.  
  
"Oh God, I'm sorry!" Keitaro pulled away, shaking in disgust and shock,"I'm sorry!" Suu cocked her head, and then wrapped her bronze arms around the manager.  
  
"No Kei-kun. I sorry. I made you vampire." Keitaro jumped, pulling away from Suu and staring at her in horror. Vampire?!  
  
"VAMPIRE?!" Suu nodded solemnly.  
  
"Vampire, yes." Keitaro ran his hands experimentally over his arms, torsoe, and legs. He felt whole, of course, but... Every part of his body had become foreign to him. The weak muscles had been replaced with taut, steel-like tissue. His movements were faster and more graceful than anything he had EVER seen himself do. He then looked over at the examination table.  
  
The restraints were clearly a kind of stainless steel. At least, they might have appeared like that a minute ago, but now they had been ripped apart into silvery streamers. They were frozen at the time of their ruin. Keitaro's enhanced vision saw the tears and bends in the destroyed metal, every detail burned into his mind.  
  
"I... I did that?" Keitaro stared at Suu in a fascinated horror. Suu nodded again, looking deeply saddened.  
  
"Hai. You now fast and strong, like tiger. Maybe stronger?" Keitaro's eyes grew into saucers as Suu sighed.  
  
"I know, Kei-kun wants to know why I did this, right?" None of Suu's usual childishness was present now in her tone or visage. Keitaro slowly nodded, sitting down in the jungle floor.  
  
"I... Found vampire gene," she confessed,"and wanted to see if it work. You are almost invincible, hai? So, I thought, "Keitaro stands the best chance of surviving experiment". I'm sorry; I got carried away again, but now you angry at me. I have turned you into monster. Suu now must punish herself," Kaolla stood up, pulled a missile launcher from a tree, and armed it, targeting her lab.  
  
"Suu must destroy-" Swifter than a cobra, Keitaro had grabbed the missile launcher away from the girl. The ronin shook his head.  
  
"Suu, am I... Dead?" Suu shook her head.  
  
"Vampires not dead, merely different. You now feed on blood, are a hunter. It is a genetic mutation that act like virus, only it does not kill you, and immune system ignores it. I am still trying to decipher it's RNA sequence, but," Suu sighed,"it complicated." Keitaro sat down, staring at his hands. He blinked as he ran his fingers across eachother, the hard nails catching his attention.  
  
"Suu? Are my nails supposed to be sharp? How long have I been out, anyway?" Suu shrugged.  
  
"Guess it's a trait. The procedure lasted three days," Keitaro started in shock. Three days?! He'd been missing for three days?! Everyone must be worried sick!  
  
"I've got to go!" Keitaro ran for the door, awed but not detered by his now incredible speed. Suu gasped behind him.  
  
"NO KEITARO! DON'T GO INTO-" Keitaro slammed the door open, staggering back at the intense light. His skin felt like it was burning! He croaked in agony as Suu rushed up and slammed the door shut. Keitaro sighed as he collapsed, breathing heavily. Suu checked his pulse, then shrugged.  
  
"Because your senses so sharp, you now super-sensitive to light. Normal light not hurt, but UV lights, like the sun and florescents, are harmful. Get skin burned and cancer many times faster than normal human." Keitaro's breathing gradually slowed as he turned his still stunned eyes to the young foreigner.  
  
"Suu, again; Why?" Suu shrugged, defeated.  
  
"Curiosity, spur of moment. And besides, Keitaro sigh about being unattractive. Vampires are sexy, aren't they?" A bit of Suu's mischevious nature returned as she winked. While Keitaro was indeed used to weird things occuring around the Hinata, the astonishing nature of this particular episode had stunned him into a bizarre kind of acceptance. He was surprising calm, except for the growing hunger he felt. His eyes drifted over to Suu again, his mind again returning to the state of a hunter.  
  
"Besides, Suu was bored being all alone at Hinata," she lamented, causing Keitaro to smack himself in the head.  
  
"Doh! That's right, the others went to that festival in another town, right? Now where was it..." Keitaro trailed off as Suu's heartbeat became deafening in his ears. The soothing, lucious, almost taunting sense of her warm blood flowed into his mind, promising a pleasure only sex could compare with.  
  
"GAH!" Keitaro shook his head violently, dislodging those thoughts like beans in a rattle. Suu giggled.  
  
"You hungry, Keitaro? You can have some of my blood." Keitaro blinked, then stared at her in shock. As if he wasn't already numbed to odd occurances now.  
  
"What? But, I thought-" Suu smiled silkily, shyly looking at the floor.  
  
"Vampires make it pleasurable... For both involved. And I can shake you off when you've had enough. Your stomach can only hold a pint or two, and I've got ten of blood," Suu seemed to change slightly, her body a bit more robust. Keitaro stared, the hunger taking control.  
  
He moved behind her, wrapping his arms around her lithe frame, and blew onto her neck. She giggled as he nipped at her ear, still blowing warm air onto her sensitive skin.  
  
Keitaro was behaving now by instinct, an instinct he had no recollection of ever feeling before. He planted a trail of kisses along her jaw, then licking tenderly at her jungular. She sighed quietly, nudging him with her elbow. He tightened his grip.  
  
His fangs bared, he plunged into her neck, exuberantly letting her delicious blood flow across his teeth and into his digestive tract. Suu was moaning quietly now, and part of Keitaro's sensation-swamped mind registered that Suu was now in her adult form. Her snuggling up against him only added to the warm glow enveloping his brain.  
  
"Mmm... Keitaro..." The adult Suu sighed happily, the feeling of release nearly overwhelming her. The scientific side of her brain classified the sensation as the result of both Keitaro's vampyric allure, and the venom-like anti-collagolent his salivary glands now produced. Another part of her brain had been struggling to count the number of seconds Keitaro had been feeding off her, and with only mild difficulty blew the whistle.   
  
Suu sighed as Keitaro too recognized that he had had enough, and he pulled away. He licked the wounds in her neck thouroughly, yet another instinct he didn't recognize falling into place. He sealed the wound, and carefully, like she was a priceless peice of sculpture, set Suu down on the leafy floor of her room. Keitaro carefully strained his senses to make absolutely sure Suu had suffered no ill effects of his feeding. He sighed in relief as Suu's breathing quieted, the blonde foreigner slinking into a warm slumber.  
  
"Oi... Well, that wasn't so bad," Keitaro muttered. Actually, it had felt awesome. An urge appeared in his pysche to cry out in ectasy, "This kicks ass, baby!" but Keitaro decided that such an action might be counter-productive. A sudden thought came to his slightly sedated mind.  
  
"How can I explain this to the girls?!" Keitaro turned to ask Suu for her acumen, then sighed as he realized she was fast asleep. Great.  
  
Keitaro racked his brain. He knew the festival lasted for three days, so the girls were probably already on their way back to the Hinata. Heck, they might even already be here.  
  
The image of Naru, Sarah or Motoko walking into Suu's room, and seeing himself standing over the unconcious foreigner, slapped his mind into action. He needed to beat it!  
  
Keitaro turned for the door, then chided himself. It wouldn't do to get fried out there. While Suu had implied Keitaro wouldn't burst into flames like in the movies, the five mintues exposure to sunlight he needed to get to his room would probably be very detrimental to his health. He recalled that Suu possessed an entrance to a secret passage somewhere around here...  
  
"Wait," Keitaro said, grinning. With his enhanced senses, it should be a snap to find the hidden door! Keitaro strained his hearing, as well as his sense of "touch". He detected a definite lack of density behind a hastily erected bush in the corner of the room. He slashed through the bushes, pulled open the door, and stepped through.  
  
"WAAAAAHHHHHH!!!" Of course, it had to be a vertical shaft. Keitaro punched his right hand into the side of the tunnel, and managed to still his descent as he slammed his feet onto the wall. The ronin-turned-vampire winced slightly at the pain he experienced from his body weight pulling on his razor-sharp nails. He noted (in slight disgust) that his phalanges had apparently lengthened, giving his fingers the appearance of elongated claws. Well, that might be useful for sharpening his pencils, he thought wryly.  
  
He punched his left hand into the wall below him, and like this he climbed downwards to a tunnel below. It was nearly pitch-black, but Keitaro saw it as if the tunnel was made of lights. His foot finally hit level ground, and he plopped lightly into a crouch. He strained his senses. It felt as though he was right on top of-  
  
"WAAAAAHHHHHH!!!"  
  
A trap door. His ancestors apparently hadn't left anything to chance when designing their home/fortress. Even their secret tunnels possessed booby traps.  
  
Keitaro tried to pull his claw climbing technique again, but before he could he landed in warm, soothing water. He was completely submerged. His enhanced senses were at first overwhelmed by the vicous fluid, but he managed to pick out a tunnel to the right of his position. He swam hard, let his buoyancy take over when he hit open water, and breeched the surface.  
  
"Whaw!" Keitaro took a breath. While the myth that vampires didn't breathe was total nonsense, their lungs were   
much stronger than a normal human's. Keitaro hadn't felt short of breath at all. He quickly noticed the prescence of someone in the water with him.  
  
"Oh no," Keitaro moaned quietly. He'd popped out in the women's bath (as he had expected to, but still...), behind an outcropping of rock. He just had to turn his eyes and come face to face with a wide eyed Shinobu Maehara. He sensed her intake of breath, preparing to scream-  
  
"Shh! Shinobu, calm down. I fell into a secret passage, I'll be out in a second!" He hissed, his hand over her mouth. Shinobu teared up in fright, and Keitaro noticed she was staring at his mouth.  
  
"Mmph?!" Keitaro shut his mouth, and smiled nervously.  
  
"Erm, they're fake fangs for a joke, okay? I'm sorry, It's my fault. I'll be going now," When Shinobu nodded, Keitaro withdrew his hand and climbed to the surface of the stone. He ignored the temptation to look back and got onto the wooden deck. He'd popped out in the shade of the Hinata, the dreadful sunlight stopped by the laws of physics. He headed for the door.  
  
"Sempai?!" Keitaro spun around (thankful that Shinobu had slipped on a towel) and brought his fingers to his lips.  
  
"Shh! What?" Keitaro stage whispered. Shinobu looked at the ground, unsure.  
  
"Um..." Keitaro smiled slightly.  
  
"I'm not upset, okay? I'm just glad I've made this less bothersome to you." Shinobu looked up, and smiled in some relief. Keitaro smiled back, and turned for the exit.  
  
He instantly came face to face with one Naru Narusegawa, glaring at him in her usual "DIE, PERVERT!" fury.  
  
"Kei....tar...o!" She snarled, pulling back her right fist as her left hand held onto her towel. Keitaro groaned.  
  
"Oh no..."  
  
Naru's fist snapped for him at sonic speed. However, the blow did not come into contact with Keitaro's chest, as both manager and tenant had expected to happen. He had caught her fist, a few inches away from his body.  
  
"Huh?!" Both Naru and Keitaro exclaimed at the same time. Naru, in shock and rage, shook Keitaro's hand from her fist and struck again.  
  
And again, Keitaro stopped the blow with ease.  
  
"How... What the... How'd you do that?!" Keitaro shrugged sheepishly.  
  
"Uh... I guess your absence sped up my reflexes, eh?" Keitaro laughed nervously. He then sprinted out the door, through the living room, up the stairs, down the hall and finally dove into his room. He breathed heavily as he felt his face with a wince; Even the breif exposure to sunlight through windows had given him a sunburn.   
  
"Owww..." Keitaro reached into a dresser drawer, rummaging about. He pulled out a bottle of SPF 50 sunscreen, and then an SPF 35 bottle. He looked at both, then smiled.  
  
"If I combine them, I'll have SPF 85! Urashima, you're a genius!" Keitaro pulled out an empty 2 liter bottle of Coca Cola, and begins pouring the UV-stopping substances into it. He mixes them together with a spare #2 pencil, and gingerly applies some to his hand. He rubs in it, then carefully opens the door.  
  
"Here goes nothing," he winces as he puts his hand outside. At that moment, Keitaro had the misfortune to grab onto the leg of Motoko Aoyama, just passing his room. The samurai girl instantly grabbed her bokken from her side.  
  
"URASHIMA!"  
  
"Eep!" Keitaro leapt all the way to the other side of his room in the time it took Motoko to shove open the door, furious.   
  
"You now meet your fate, hentai!" Motoko charged up her sword, focused the energy, and unleashed the concentrated blast of hypersonic air right at the terrified ronin. Any mundane human being would have been airborne before they'd peiced together what had happened to them, and so would Keitaro if he were what Motoko had expected.  
  
However, our hero's enhanced vampire senses allowed him to "see" the blast before it was even fired, and with no more than the effort needed to grin he somersaulted out of the way, the blast blowing a hole through the wall behind him but nothing more.  
  
Motoko blinked at her target, who was now in a crouching stance similar to a style Bruce Lee had fancied before his drug overdose. Keitaro was learning to fight off his feelings of shock at his new, incredible abilities, and so he tried to keep up an impassive expression.  
  
"Um... Motoko, I'm sorry for grabbing onto your leg in the hall. It was an accident, and I-"  
  
"HIKEN ZANKUSEN!" Another blast from Motoko's ample ki energy reserves sent Keitaro into a tight flip right over her attack. He landed in yet another crouched position, glaring at Motoko. The kendo mistress merely looked upon him in a curious gaze.  
  
"Hey! I said I was sorry, didn't I?!"  
  
"Urashima. The roof. Now." Keitaro blinked. What the...  
  
"Um, Motoko?"  
  
"Now, Urashima." Keitaro blinked again. What the hell was going on here? Sure, he'd dodged her attacks not once, but TWICE, but what was she up to- Keitaro gaze narrowed.  
  
"Motoko, I'm not going to fight you. I have no wish to. And besides, I've got some chores to do, so if I may?" Motoko looked shocked, disappointed, and suspicious all at the same time, but nevertheless gave Keitaro way. He headed down the hallway.  
  
"At least tell me how you were able to avoid my attacks," she persisted. Keitaro shrugged.  
  
"Maybe I'll tell you later," he sighed as he headed for the broom closet.  
  
**************  
  
  
So... Any suggestions? R&R please... 


End file.
